LIVING IN CHINA: HIBISCUS BULBS, ALAN DERSHOWITZ, AND PEAS
In 1980, while living in China, I insisted on speaking Mandarin when planning a dinner for Alan Dershowitz and other Harvard professors. Oops.
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travel
Biking in Beijing: LING LING!
I didn’t see why that was so funny, until they caught their breath and told me . . .
On Noise and Amtrak’s Quiet Car
I am a fan of Amtrak’s quiet car, yet I harbor love-hate emotions toward the sub-culture of those who journey in this vessel of alleged silence.
Two Falls and One Worrywart
Suddenly a skinny, little girl—of perhaps seven years—broke free from her family and darted in front of my bicycle.
Chasing a Veal Chop
On a Sunday evening in New York I enjoyed a lovely dinner at the Union Square Café with my friend Jessica. I was happy with my pappardelle until two thirds of the way through my meal, at the next table, a waitperson placed in front of a trim young woman …
My Ideal Seatmate
Ever since reading about Dutch Airline KLM’s new program that allows passengers to choose seatmates, using Facebook and LinkedIn profiles, I’ve been contemplating who my ideal seat mate should be. For a worrywart this whole idea is a great thing.
10 TWITTER QUESTIONS & 1 TWITTER TALE
Note to those of my peeps to whom Twitterspeak is as foreign as Uz-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan-ese: You may not want to slog through this one. If you do, RT means retweet. I spend a lot of time on Twitter sharing links to articles I write. I have cultivated a variety of followers. …
SAVING EMAILS. SAVING VOICEMAIL. MY MOM’S VOICE.
I’m a saver. Every time my inbox mounts to the limit of 4,000 emails, I move a few thousand to random folders I doubt I’ll ever find again; and then I’m set for another few weeks of not deleting messages, mainly from the likes of Sock Hop Sundays, Hot Tub …
Hanging With Chad: Making a New Friend
When I’m in New York, I like to hang out and write at Jack’s, a coffee place in the West Village with a patina that suggests long afternoons of sipping lattes and tapping on laptops. The overall look is shades of brown, like paper bags and coffee. Jack’s is so …
NOISY SEASON RANT
Beware of asking me to rant. I am liable to start today, five days after autumn began (also National Good Neighbor Day and National Pancake Day), and never stop until Flag Day. If you really want to hear loud and wild talk, ask me about the leaf blowers whose noise …
The “Family Vacation,” At The Beach With My Ex, Season 1
Season 8 of “The Family Vacation” has ended. Back from The Hamptons to their everyday lives are “Family Vacation” stars: the exes—since 1998—Steve and Susan (yours truly) and their three twenty-something daughters, Eliza, Sabrina and Emily. Let’s take a look back at Season 1, Summer of 2004. “The whole family’s …
MOTHER DIED TODAY
If your mother has recently died, here is a post I wrote for you. Saturday, July 2, 2011 Mother died today. I am not trying to channel Camus, just trying to make sense of how it feels to suddenly become a 65-year-old orphan in New York while my mom’s cold …
CAN YOU HELP MY MOM EXPRESS HERSELF?
Only eight weeks ago, I was on a half-hour bike ride home, all uphill, when I called Mom for our daily shmooze. We caught up on political scandals, Sarah Palin, literature, Oprah and Mom’s latest Bingo game. While we talked, mounting the hill was effortless. Shortly after that, her doctor determined …
LOSING MY KINDLE
Losing a Kindle or an iPad, it could happen to you (White Girl Worry alert) . . . I flew home from Boston on Friday night of Memorial weekend. At 2 a.m. before getting into bed to read, I emptied all my bags and clearly I’d left my Kindle on the …
CHILLAXING
I don’t claim to be chill, but I become even less chill when someone tells me to chillax. When I’m really excited about something and someone says, “Chillax,” it’s even worse; it’s what my friend calls “squishing the little bird inside of you.” Take, for example, the time I was …
EASTER DINNER, BEIJING-STYLE
My Chinese friend Tammy took a few of us to the courtyard of Ritan Park’s Xi He Ya Ju for Easter dinner (and my last night in Beijing), which included golden, crispy Peking Duck. Afterwards, we enjoyed duck soup, made with the duck’s body parts and soft tofu. All the …
Matchmaking, Beijing-Style (A Day Off From Worry)
A crowd of gray-haired parents of single adults negotiates with one another along a stretch of Beijing’s Zhongshan Park. These confabs occur on a strip of pavement lined on one side with rainbows of tulips and, on the other side, with the moat of the Forbidden City. A woman, …
A MOTHER SURVIVES “SURVIVOR”
Unrelated Announcement, my new article: CAN SEPARATE BEDROOMS SAVE A MARRIAGE? Weigh In! It wasn’t like I had a choice when, at the breakfast table, my then-21-year-old daughter Eliza presented me with documents to sign. The whole family had to swear to confidentiality or the plan was off for her …
10 DAYS IN NEW YORK: LESSONS LEARNED, WORRIES AMASSED
There’s a lot to learn during 10 days in New York. I learned I can go far north or south on dedicated bike lanes. And once a day someone grouses at me for wheeling crosstown on the sidewalk, not that I blame them. But I do blame the guy who tried …
DOCUMENTING MY LIFE PART II, THE PHOTOGRAPHS
Unrelated announcement: How Couples Resolve the Thermostat Wars & Other Domestic Battles Sometimes I think my memories are based solely on photographs. My kids won’t forget anything the way they record themselves every time they change clothes, then post and tag the results on Facebook. Come to think of it, I’m …
DOCUMENTING MY LIFE, PART I, THE JOURNAL
Unrelated Announcement: Check out my recent Home Goes Strong article “Brain Food . . . Simple Recipes to Delight Your Palate & Your Mind.” How do I strike a balance between time spent living and time spent documenting? For example, when traveling, my anxiety about documenting rises. Should I sit …
PHOTOPHOBIA*
Like me, does everyone become as frozen as Michelangelo’s David whenever they think of all their photographs fading in plastic bags, on sticky non-archival album pages, and loose in various boxes, chests and drawers? Not to mention all those out-of-control digital photographs? Recently I wrote a series of three articles for …
A Mother’s Tweetmares
Following one’s daughter on Twitter carries risks for a worrywart. Especially when that daughter tweets all day long. Last weekend my daughter (the tweeter) threw a birthday party for herself at a bar where I knew she would be surrounded by loads of friends. It never occurred to me anything …
LONG OVERDUE TIP DAY + A BONUS DIET TIP
It’s been a longie since my last Tip Day. I’m worried you’ll think I’ve run out of tips. To be honest, I’m a little worried myself. So today, when a positive thought visited me, I wondered how I could put a worry spin on it. Then I remembered long-neglected Tip …
LETTER FROM BEIJING
Unrelated announcement: Worried about your waistline over the holidays? See some great diet tips in my new Home Goes Strong post: Stock Your Kitchen to Reduce Your Waistline. When traveling, I experience this pull between what I feel like doing and what I think I ought to be doing. In …
THINGS I OVERLOOK IN ORDER TO FLY FOR INSTANCE WHERE TO SIT ON A PLANE
Unrelated announcement: Zhuzh up hot chocolate with a candy cane stirrer and other Breakfast Ideas to Wow a Couple or a Crowd. See my article on Home Goes Strong. I’ll be flying on the day after Thanksgiving and I’m dying to try a pat down. But I’ll not do it …
Choosing My Parents
During the first half of my fifties, I visited my parents in Florida a few times a year for a few days at a time. Then a friend, whose parents had died when she was in her early twenties, convinced me I should visit my folks every month. So I …
A BOYFRIEND MEMORY & FORGETTING NAMES
Though I have a fear of catching “other people’s worries,” I don’t worry about getting infected by my friend Baxter; each of us independently has come up with the same things to worry about. While gabbing over cappuccinos the other day, she mentioned fear of forgetting people’s names. This is …
Kindle & Me <3
Here’s how I came to fall in Kindle love (though, as you may come to understand, I am sympathetic to impatient readers, so if you want to skip ahead, scroll down to where you see Kindle in bold). In addition to a lifelong wish that my stomach were flat, I’ve …
I’VE MET MY MATCH
Unrelated Announcement: Check out my new post on Home Goes Strong, “You Don’t Have to Be Jewish to Make Great Chicken Soup” Oh My Lady Gaga, I’ve met my match! Below is part of an email I just received from a dear old friend, whom I don’t see very often, …